


Peter Stark vs. The Press

by merrysophiatrash



Series: A Son, A Father, and a Lot of Confused People [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And I decided on 60 minutes first, Basically just Peter and the press, F/M, Gen, I saw a thing where Peter went on Ellen, Iron Dad, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, once they figure out Tony's his dad, spider son
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-13 15:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15367449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrysophiatrash/pseuds/merrysophiatrash
Summary: Peter has never really been in the spotlight. Besides Spiderman, he pretty much lays low, blending into the crowd. But soon, the entire world was going to know that he was Tony Stark's son. It was going to be chaos.-=+=-Or, Peter's life after adoption in a series of press interviews and talk shows.





	1. 60 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> So, you don't really need to read the other ones to understand this one, but there are two stories before this if you're interested.

Peter was almost one hundred percent sure that he was sweating off all the makeup the nice lady had just put on him. After Tony being his guardian for going on two years and being legally his son for a few months, he was not ready for this. Both Michelle and Ned had helped him a lot, Pepper and Tony even more so, but he still wasn’t ready. Tony had said he could back out if he wanted to, and they would just run the interview on Tony and Stark Industries, but he couldn’t do that either. He would be disappointing a lot of people. But the whole world was about to know. He’d been hiding it for years, and in the few seconds after this thing airs, everyone will know. And not only that, but everyone will care. Because he wasn’t just the mysterious son of anybody, he was the mysterious son of Tony fucking Stark. It was set to air tomorrow evening. But he was doing it now. The man, who Peter thinks introduced himself as Scott? was settling into his chair, his makeup finished. Tony’s was almost done, and soon enough he was sitting down. Peter was okay, at the moment. There were only three other people in the room besides him and Tony. Two cameramen operating different cameras, and Scott. So little people lifted a large weight off of his shoulders. And his spidey senses weren’t going off, so he logically knew that there wasn’t anything wrong, but he was nervous. Suddenly, the cameraman whose camera was focused on Mr. Pelling gave him a thumbs up, and suddenly he was smiling, rattling off his monologue. That’s it? Just like that? Were they starting?

“I’m Scott Pelling, and tonight on 60 minutes, CBS has gotten the honor to introduce a new face to the world, a face that for years, has been kept under wraps from the media. Though he may be unfamiliar, I am also interviewing a face well known to the public. A household name. Tony Stark would like to introduce his son. Peter Stark, as well as a tour through the MIT Media Lab, tonight on 60 minutes.” But then he was done, not asking any questions, and Peter remembered that they had an intro monologue. 

“Alright Peter, so I’ve been told that in order to make this interview as genuine as possible, you haven’t been told the questions, but they were approved by your father. If they aren’t something you wanna answer, that’s okay. That’s why we aren’t live.” As happy as he was at that, he couldn’t help but feel that Mr. Pelling was patronizing him.

“We’ll start whenever you’re ready, okay? The cameras are already rolling, but we’ll cut out everything that occurs in this room until you give me the thumbs up.” As soon as he finished talking, Peter gave the thumbs up, and he started.

“Here with me today is Tony Stark, founder of Stark Industries and Iron Man. Also here is Peter Stark, Tony’s son and new heir to Stark Industries. So this will be a little strange, considering we couldn’t research you, and the only thing anyone knows about you is that you’re in line to receive a Fortune 500 company should anything happen to Tony. Tell us about yourself. Your age, what you do.”

Peter looked at him. “My name’s Peter. Um, I turned 18 two days ago. Let’s all hope that nothing happens to him any time soon, I’m not ready.” Scott looked confused.

“Not ready? I imagine Tony’s had you preparing for this your whole life, no?” Peter chuckled conspiratorily, murmuring something the camera, nor Mr. Pelling could hear.

“Actually no. Mr. Stark has only been my guardian for going on two years, and he’s only legally been my dad for about two months, and none of it was spent teaching me how to run a company. Most of it was teaching me other things. Science, tech, how to deal with the Avengers. I don’t think he planned on making me ‘heir’ to the company until a few months ago, when people started realizing the company didn't have one. An heir, that is.” Peter tapered off, nodding, and Tony gave him an encouraging smile.

“Two years? So he’s not biologically your father? You forget that none of us know this story, Peter.” He smiled good-naturedly.

“Oh. Yeah. Um, well. If you want a consolidated version of my life story, I was born Peter Parker, to Richard and Mary Parker-” Scott held a hand up. 

“Richard and Mary Parker, why do I know these names?” Peter winced.

“Well, Richard Parker was a major scientist, so he was in the news a bit. They both died in a plane crash when I was very young. I was living with my Aunt since then, but about two years ago now she died. Cancer.” He nodded sympathetically. Peter decided not to mention Uncle Ben.

“I’m very sorry to hear that. And Tony, how did you meet Peter? What made you take him in, what made you wish for him to be your heir?”

Tony looked up, having not been paying to much attention.

“Um, a few different things. If you live in New York, you’ve probably seen the name Peter Parker a few times. I met Peter during the Captain and I’s little problem, give or take three years ago. The Accords, though pretty bad at the time, did make me realize the effects of my actions as Iron Man, and I had a sort of epiphany that I could be doing much more for the world in the other, non-hero half of my life. I decided I wanted to find people, specifically young people, who were changing the world for the better with science. At that time, Peter got himself in local news quite a bit in a short amount of time. First, he entered the MIT science fair and became the youngest person to ever win it, at like, fifteen years old. He was barely even allowed to enter, let alone expected to win. He entered my SI essay contest, which gives scholarships to about a dozen people a year. He didn’t win the whole thing, but he did get a partial scholarship for his essay about the importance of education on human life. Which, I ended up reading it after the fact, when someone told me that the kid I was mentoring had won it before. It was written a few days after the kid turned fifteen, and it was extremely profound. Anyway, he also applied for an internship around the same time, and he also got in the local news for saving a cat from a tall tree. I don’t quite remember why I came across him, but I did. The kid starts working for me, coming after schools and most weekends to come invent and do good. If we have time, ask him about Melanie, I’m super proud of him for that. But eventually he wormed his way into basically all of the Avengers' hearts, but especially mine, and at one point, Natasha Romanov threatened to adopt him if I didn’t and I couldn’t leave him resigned to that fate, so here we are.” He gave a warm smile at Peter, who blushed.

“And what about that first meeting. What was it like?” 

Peter’s eyes lit up. “It was actually kind of crazy. Because he’s Tony Stark and he can, he never told anybody that he was going to come and meet me, and I just sort of came home from school one day and he was just sitting on my couch, drinking horrible tea my aunt made, and she looked at me and was like, ‘You applied for an internship? Why didn’t you tell me?’ And I was freaking out because I actually had applied for an internship, and then he told me that not only did he want me to intern, but he wanted me in his lab, as well as in other high-level labs working on pretty advanced stuff, and I think I almost died.”

“And, Mr. Stark, when did you consider Peter to become your heir? Was it before or after he became your child?”

“Well, like he said, nobody really thought about it until someone thought about it. I mean obviously since he’s been my kid every way except legally for two years, I've had thoughts about the legacy aspect of it, the fact that eventually, this kid would be my kid, and he would carry on what I started, but in terms of him physically running the company, I didn’t even think about it until someone on my board of directors realized that I didn’t have a listed heir. Everyone assumed that it would just go to Pepper, and had something happened to me while Peter was still a minor, it would’ve, but it still worried them, and when I was notified of it, my first and only thought was Peter. Becuase he’s my kid, and he’s kind and compassionate and intelligent beyond belief and I know that he would never let the company go back to the way it was before, when we were hurting people instead of helping them. So yeah.”

“Now, Tony you’ve mentioned Peter’s intelligence quite a bit now. What can you tell us about that?”

Tony scoffed. “The kid’s a genius, and I’m not saying that because I’m his dad. He goes to a magnet math and science school here in New York, he works on nanotechnology with me and quantum physics with Bruce Banner, both of which are things some of the smartest men in the world will never understand, and the kid isn’t even finished with high school yet. He’s helped his high school win Nationals in Academic Decathlon. He’s created two separate AI’s, self-learning, real intelligence. One for himself, for his lab, and another, Melanie, for another purpose which I assume we’ll get to later. He created all of Spiderman’s tech besides the suit, he created the formula for the paralytic agent in Natasha’s strongest Widow Bites, he solves unsolvable math problems for fun. One website offered a million dollar prize to anyone who could solve it, and Peter did, donating the money to charity. He’s got an IQ higher than Bruce Banner’s and mine, and besides being a little oblivious, I genuinely think he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. The only person I know who matches him in intelligence would be another teenager, the princess of Wakanda.” Peter looked down at his lap, blushing.

‘That’s quite the list of achievements, Peter. Now, I’ve heard the name ‘Melanie’ a few times. Care to elaborate?” Peter looked at Tony, who gestured to him.

“So Melanie is an artificial life form I’ve created for the purpose of pediatrics. She’s about as similar to a real person as an artificial life form can get at the moment, and the idea is that she’ll be used in hospitals. Her hardware and software are super secure, I’ve had many many experienced computer programmers try and hack it, the best of the world, and no one can get through it. The only way you’re getting into Melanie is if you know the password. Essentially, the idea is that she’ll help children. Whether playing a movie while the kids get shots, or taking noninvasive x-rays, or making different things like CAT scans and MRI’s that would require children to go into a dark room and get different parts of them examined less scary, or making children fascinated with her. Like, a few of the Avengers’ kids come over, and they spend hours talking to Melanie. She can also sometimes catch things doctors miss. Because Melanie is essentially a very smart human with eyes 100 times better than ours that can take into account other aspects of people than just image, who can detect tumors not only based on an x-ray, but also off of a scan she does that will take seconds. The idea that I can use her to help little kids who are going through hard times is pretty amazing. At the moment, it’s very expensive to make another Melanie, but right now at SI, we have people like myself and Bruce Banner working on bringing the cost down to an affordable price to put her in hospitals, in daycares, anywhere where she can help. You know, right now, there are only two people in the world who know how to make truly artificial life, and they’re sitting right next to you, which makes Melanie easily a 10 million dollar machine, but imagine if we could make many Melanie’s and sell them for say, 50 dollars. Imagine how many children could be helped if we could more easily detect malignant tumors, if we could detect signs of lymphoma before a patient starts experiencing symptoms, before the cancer becomes apparent. And obviously, the entire purpose of Melanie isn’t to make a profit. If I can’t get Melanie to a cost under fifty dollars, I’ll be disappointed, because I know we can.”

“Wow, Peter, you’ve absolutely blown me away. Can you tell us more about your relationships with the residents of the tower?”

Tony tilted his head sideways. “Anyone who’s ever seen Peter with an Avenger or Pepper can contest to this, but Peter is all the Avengers’ child. He gets away with calling Natasha ‘spider mother’ if you can believe that. He calls them all his aunts and uncles, he makes them scarily soft and domestic, it’s sort of scary. He has too much power.”

Peter grinned. “They may not be my family by blood, but in all rights and regards, they’re family. They take care of me, we have movie nights, it’s great. I will admit, I’m not nearly as close to them as I am to dad, obviously, but they’re eccentric aunts and uncles who I wouldn’t trade for the entire world.

The rest of the interview was talking about inheriting the company and the change from the small apartment in Queens to the massive Manhattan skyline.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of being in the studio Peter went back home, and waited for Friday night when the program would air. Good god almighty he was dead. He was actually going to fake his death and change his name and move to Madagascar. 

-=+=-

Peter could not handle the looks he was getting. It was Monday. Again. And everyone was staring at him. It was terrible. Worse than terrible. It was awkward. No one had come up to him, yet, but when he turned the corner to the hallway with his locker in it, he almost stopped dead in his tracks. Because there he was, in front of his locker. 

Flash Thompson.

“Peter, my dude, how are you today?” Peter looked disappointed. Was he really doing this?

“So I was wondering if you would be my partner for the physics project we have. We could go back to both of our places and do it?” Peter scoffed.

“I’m doing the physics project with MJ. Please leave me alone, Flash.” He made an offended noise.

“What, so now that you’re Tony Stark’s kid, you think you’re on some pedestal? That you’re above anyone else here?”

“No,” Peter said calmly, though inside he was anything except calm. “I’m already doing the project with MJ. You’ve bullied me for the past 4 years of my life Flash, and what, now that I’m Peter Stark instead of Peter Parker, I’m worthy of being your friend now?”

There was a small, warm hand on his back, and suddenly MJ stood beside him, flipping Flash off.

“If you know what’s best for you, Flash, you’ll fuck off.” She slipped her hand into his and pulled him backward, and Flash scoffed but backed off.

“Thanks, MJ.” She crossed her arms, smiling good-naturedly at him.

“So, I was wondering, MJ, if you would like to go do something, um, after we do our project and stuff. There’s an ice cream place around the corner from the tower, but if you wanted to do something nicer, we could do that, but it didn’t really seem like your style and-” He was silenced from his rambling by a finger on his lips.

“Are you asking me out, Peter?” His eyes widened.

“Not- Not if you don’t want me to be. Just- Nevermind forget I said anything, but we do need to schedule a day to work on our project and-” he was cut off again, this time by another pair of lips that were gone as soon as they came.

“I’m free for the project on Friday, and ice cream sounds great.” And she walked away.

Peter still had so much to deal with today, but he would be thinking about that for the rest of it, not caring about what anybody else thought.


	2. The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter does a talk show with a man he's watched since he aired, he fanboys a bit and talks about college, then it all goes to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me, I'll do a one-shot on their date but it didn't fIT IN THE CHAPTER WITH THE FORMAT.

This was only the second appearance he had made since it had been revealed, and it had been two weeks. And it already seemed a lot easier. He knew the questions and topics and had thought out answers, though they weren’t scripted. He wasn’t going in blind. Plus he was finished with classes for the year, which helped. He still had to go to graduation, which he had to prepare a speech for, being Valedictorian. (MJ, who hadn’t aced their final, had gotten Salutatorian, and she refused to talk to him for a week. She was writing a speech, too.)

But there were two very large and insistent things causing him to worry.

Firstly; It was Stephen Colbert. As soon as Colbert took on the late night role, Peter had loved it. He and his Aunt May taped them all so that Peter didn’t stay up late watching them, and would binge them on the weekends. He had absolutely adored it. Since May died, Tony carried on the tradition. About a week or so ago, Peter had thought aloud in the lab while they were watching Colbert. 

“Hey Dad, what was being on Colbert like? I wish I could be, it would be so cool.” Tony raised an eyebrow.

“It was good. Nice guy. And I mean you’re going to have to make another public appearance some way, why not on Colbert?”

Needless to say, the next four hours consisted of Peter asking Tony strange questions and if this was really happening.

Secondly; he was going in by himself. This time there was no dad to comfort him and generally make him feel less nervous, it was just him. He and Pepper were both out of the country, Pepper in Hong Kong with the board members, Tony on a mission somewhere in South America. And so Happy would be dropping him off at the studio, where in front of a live audience, he would spill his guts. Now, there was some editing and things involved, so it wasn’t completely a one-shot deal, but it was still terrible.

At the moment, he was backstage, and another nice lady was doing his makeup. Why did he need makeup? He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe because holy shit he’s going on Stephen Colbert.

Distantly, he heard him doing his monologue, and heard bits and pieces about Trump’s recent screw-up and how some kids were now making candy cocaine or something. The monologues were always Peter’s favorite part. He wished that it wasn’t so loud backstage so that he could properly hear it. He did his outro to go to commercial, and suddenly there was a camera in his face. 

“When we get back,” he heard him say, “Peter Stark!” He vaguely remembered the snippets of guests before commercial.

A minute later and some important looking people with mics pushed him to the wings and told him to smile and wave at the audience when Colbert, and not take too long to get to his seat.

“My first guest tonight is a kid who has made news recently for being Tony Stark’s secret son, but he’s got quite a lot of achievements that don’t have anything to do with his father, ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage, Peter Stark!”

A woman ushered him onstage from a place the camera couldn’t see him, and the first thought was too much. The can lights were hot and blinding, the audience was screaming, and he was about to talk to one of his childhood idols. He almost shut down, but slowly and surely, he walked on stage. He smiled and waved at the audience, who were up and out of their seats, and were being extremely friendly. He shook hands with Stephen and buttoned up his suit, which was actually really comfortable. Colbert gestured to his seat, sitting down at his desk with his cue cards.

He waved at the crowd again.

“Hello! I’m so glad to have you on!”

“Thanks, Stephen, I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me on such short notice, I appreciate it.” He chuckled, and Peter almost fainted.

“Why was that by the way? I imagine you’ve got a few press things lined up, but for everyone at home, we just got a call asking if Peter could be on sometime soon, which was good because someone had just backed out, but it was oddly casual and fairly rushed.” Peter blushed and clasped his hands.

“Okay, so it’s kind of a funny story. So ever since you took on the Late Show in 2015, my Aunt and I have loved your show,” there were a few claps from the audience and Stephen looked surprised, “Yeah I know, this is actually a dream come true. But even now dad and I carry on the tradition, like we’ll be tinkering in the lab, and the TV in the lab is set to turn on whenever your show comes on, and last week we were just watching casually while working on the car, and I was a moron and just kind of thought aloud like, ‘I wonder what it would be like to be on Colbert’ and he gave me the patented I’m-Tony-Stark-I-do-what-I-want look and looked at me and said something like, ‘I mean he was a cool dude, noninvasive, and I mean you’ll have to talk to the media again eventually, why not do something you’ll enjoy’ so I’ve spent the past week freaking out over coming here, and I actually think I might pass out just being on this stage right now.” Colbert’s eyebrows went up almost to his hairline.

“Why that’s very kind of you to say. So I heard your eighteenth birthday was a few weeks ago, happy late birthday.” He smiled.

“Thank you. Being an adult is weird and I don’t really like it, but thank you.”

“Yes, well you’ll be one the rest of your life, you better get used to it. So, you’re still in school, correct? Are you a senior? About to graduate, yes? What schools have you applied to, where do you wanna go, and what do you want to do?”

“Well I’m already done with classes, and by the time this airs, I’ll have graduated. So to everyone watching at home, graduation was fun I had a blast. Um-” Stephen held up a hand.

“What about that, what’s your class rank?” Peter blushed.

“Oh um, I’m Valedictorian.” Colbert’s eyes widened. “Valedictorian at a magnet nerd school? That’s incredible!”

“Thanks, I have to speak. It’s nerve-racking, but it’ll be fun, one of my best friends is Salutatorian, and she’s going to MIT with me, and we wrote our speeches so they matched and were cohesive. My other best friend, who made me promise I’d mention him in one of these things is fifth in our class. Hi Ned!” He waved at the camera and Colbert laughed.

“Hey, Ned. Um so sorry I interrupted you, you were talking about college, please continue.”

“Oh uh, right, so, I did early admission to a few schools, but I decided on MIT, where my best friend is going as well, so next fall I’ll be going there. I plan on majoring in Engineering, but Pepper’s been nagging me to double major in business as well, now that everyone seems to know I’ll be inheriting a company.”

“I’ve heard double majoring is supposed to be hard, but from what we know about you, it seems like you’ll be just fine. And if you’re going to MIT, that means you’ll be a legacy, correct? Because if I’m right, Tony Stark did attend MIT.”

“Yes he did, although I’m not registered as a legacy student, nor am I registered as Peter Stark, I’m actually registered as Peter Parker, because at the time of admission, legally I still was Peter Parker. Eventually, I’ll have to change that.”

“Okay so I’m getting told from backstage to move on, so here we go. We normally ask for footage dealing with whatever my guest was just in, or just made or whatever, but since we don’t have any footage of you or what you’ve been doing, you sent in some fairly unusual footage. Please, for the audience, explain.”

“Okay, so I figured, if this was a meet and greet, the public getting to know me, and since the press is going to find out all my deepest darkest secrets anyway, I might as well show you my lowest moments, right off the bat. So the first one was my first meeting with Captain America and the Black Widow, and it’ll probably be censored since this is CBS, but it’s cool. If any of you watching are from Midtown’s 7th-period Chemistry class with Mr. Lazacs you’ll have already seen this, but I figured I’d add it anyway because it’s probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. The second one is a video FRIDAY, dad’s AI took about three months ago when he first told me he was giving me Stark Industries and needed me to sign papers. This will probably embarrass him as much as it embarrasses me, so that’s a pro. And they’re pretty long, so that’s it. I’m so glad that there’s almost no more to this interview as much as I love it because I think I might run off stage out of shame while this is playing.

“Alright, well we won’t judge if you do, it takes some special kind of courage to show these, so without further ado, here’s Peter Stark in ‘Embarrassing Moments’”

A baby Peter was at the top of the glass stairs, Tony, Steve, and Natasha at the bottom, sitting at the bar. The video started with Peter walking out of the hallway at the top of the stairs. _‘Hey Mr. Stark, have you seen my- ohmygod is that Captain America?’ video Stark chuckled. ‘Good to see you too, kid, what am I, chopped liver?’ Peter started stammering, trying to defend himself before- ‘Holy *beep*!’ Peter tumbled down the stairs head first, rolling onto the landing at an awkward angle. Natasha raced to pick him up, and Peter looked at her dreamily. ‘Mr. Stark, I think I have a concussion.’ He started to pick himself up, peeling himself from Natasha’s grasp. ‘Why is that, kiddo?’ He looked at Stark confusedly. ‘I just hallucinated that the queen of the entire *beep* world, Natasha Romanov, helped me up when I fell.’ he paused, his brain thinking hard about what to say next. ‘It’s too late for this *beep*, I’m going back upstairs, will you text May that I’m staying here?’_ The final frame of the video had the camera pan toward Natasha, who was looking after Peter with a dopey grin.

The next video was set three months ago, after they had applied for adoption but before it had been approved, the day Tony had been approached about the whole heir thing. It was being filmed in the lab, and Peter was tinkering with some of Clint’s arrows. Tony swiped a pass and the doors opened. He threw a stack of papers on the table where Peter was working. He didn’t even flinch, nor look up at Tony. 

_‘Hey dad do you know where the uber small pair of tweezers are? A piece of Clint’s arrowhead got stuck in the arrow when he shot it and I can’t get it out with these ones,’ he said, wheeling his chair to another table. Tony picked up the stack and followed him, thunking the papers down in front of Peter before he could get distracted. Finally, Peter looked up. ‘What’s this?’ Tony looked at him. ‘Read the title, Peter’ He quirked his eyebrow. ‘Okay… Official Transference of Ownership.’ he paused, looking at Tony. ‘What does it mean?’ Tony peeked at Peter through his fingers. ‘Read the first paragraph, Peter. Aloud.’ Peter sat down at the desk and grabbed the first page, bringing it closer to his face. ‘In the event of his death or otherwise inability, Tony Stark transfers all assets of his company, Stark Industries, to his son, Peter. Peter, with the help and guidance of CEO Virginia Potts, will be in charge of making executive decisions and will be responsible for the future of the company.’ He looked at Tony, a carefree grin on his face. ‘Very funny dad. What, did Rhodey want you to get me back for bedazzling his suit? Or was it Sam for the honey thing. Whoever it was, tell them that your fake papers didn’t convince me.’ Tony winced. ‘Well obviously they won’t be made legal until the adoption papers go through and you’re actually my son, but it came up earlier today that SI would effectively die if I do, and that I needed to have someone to give it to. So legal has been writing furiously all day. Say hello to the first draft of the papers that will give you a company.’ Peter’s face fell, and he stood up. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Tony shook his head. ‘I’m getting Pepper!’ Peter sprinted out of the lab, grabbing the stack of papers, Tony hot on his tail, and the camera switched until it went to Pepper’s office, Peter bursting through the door. ‘Pep tell me this is a joke. I swear if this isn’t a joke.’ Pepper gave a quick glance at the papers, covering the phone she was holding with her hand. She hung up on the probably important person she was calling. ‘Sorry to spring this on you, babe, but if I told you that, I’d be lying.’ Peter’s face went ghostly pale. And suddenly he just screamed. ‘Oh my god why?’ He looked at Pepper with wide eyes. “Pepper I’m not even a functioning human, nor am I an adult, what on Earth makes you think I can run a company?’ Pepper quirked an eyebrow. ‘Neither is he, but he managed it just fine.’ She pointed at Tony, who had made his way into the room. Peter, who hadn’t heard him come in, screamed again, and Pepper laughed. ‘Peter, you won’t have to do much, it’s just a precaution. I’ll still be CEO, and I’ll make most decisions and stuff. Tony will still be the owner. It’s not a huge deal. All you have to do is sign a few papers.’ Peter’s eyes widened even more, far wider than they should ever go. ‘Not a big deal? Oh my god! We’re talking about the fate of the largest, most profitable company in the entire world! Are you kidding me?’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘You know what, nevermind. I’m not surprised. I’m just going to be upstairs. In my room. Screaming.’ He walked as calmly as possible out of the door, and in the final second of the video, they could see Tony and Pepper burst out laughing.’_

The camera opened back up and there was a suspiciously empty place where Peter was sitting. Suddenly the top of a face peeked out from behind Stephen’s desk, and he went to sit back down. Colbert was still laughing. He held his hand out to Peter, who shook it. “Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Stark! And when we come back, Zendaya!” Peter waved at the camera until they had been notified that it had stopped recording.

-=+=-

He had left the studio without much trouble. He decided to walk home, texting Happy that he was doing so.

“I did fine. Just fine. I’m fine, definitely not freaking out. I was just interviewed by Stephen Colbert, and I did fine.”

“I’m sure you did great, Peter.” He screamed. Very loudly.

MJ was leaning on the building opposite him.

“Oh my god MJ you scared the shit out of me. How did you even find me?”

“I didn’t. You just crossed my path and I figured, might as well come and scare the Holy Spirit out of you. I’m surprised no reporters have spotted you. You aren’t exactly inconspicuous.” He looked down at his three-piece suit and sighed.

“Guess not.” She slipped her hand in his. Peter didn’t quite know what they were, yet, but he had asked her out, she had said yes, she’d kissed him twice. He figured it couldn’t hurt.

They walked for a while like that, content for a while, oblivious to everything around them. Until MJ was whirling around, her hand slipping from his grasp.

“What the hell do you want?” There was a man with a camera following them.

“Can you move out of the way, please, I wanna get a picture of the kid.” MJ scoffed and stepped closer, obscuring Peter from the camera’s lens.

“Go Peter he won’t stop.” Peter shook his head.

“Let him, I don’t care.”

“Miss, who are you, and will you speak on the record for the Daily Bugle?” MJ gave him an evil stare.

“Fuck no. Get the hell away.”

“Just let me get a picture of the kid and I’ll leave.” She crossed her arms.

“I’m a reporter too, dipshit, I won’t fall for that.” He tried to butt past her. She grinned.

“Hey Peter, I have a way to get him to leave, if you don’t mind being on the news a bit.” He nodded viciously. 

“I have one thing to say on record for the Daily Bugle. How about this? Peter’s my boyfriend, and if you don’t fuck off, I will call the cops.” She walked back over to Peter, who looked shell-shocked.

And she grabbed his face.

And kissed him.

Hard.

“Peter, run!” She grabbed his hand and sprinted away, the reporter enthusiastically taking pictures.

Once they had run into an alley far away, they stopped to catch their breath.

And laughed so hard they could hardly breathe. Until Peter realized what she had said.

“Hey, MJ, did you mean that?” She stopped laughing, a childish grin remaining on her face.

“Mean what, loser?”

“Like, would you actually- do you wanna be my girlfriend? Really? Because now people are gonna think- and-” He cut himself off when her grin turned into a sincere smile.

“Yeah, Peter, I do. Tell the world, I don’t give a shit. I’m an adult, I can do what I want. If anybody tries to stop me, they can deal with the two of us.”

He smiled, and her face turned grim.

“Holy shit now our speeches will sound so fake. Oh well, honestly I don’t care. I’m leaving that hell school for good, it’s not like those stupid kids can hurt me at this point. We’ll go to MIT and we’ll be the best damn power couple that school has ever seen.”

Peter smiled. Then frowned.

Good god almighty, Pepper was going to kill him whenever that article came out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because of course the way they officially got together was MJ forcibly smooching him...
> 
> Also I have no clue how legal documents work but let's pretend it's like that.


	3. The Daily Bugle & An Internet Interview (Instagram Live)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's rep with the press goes down after the Daily Bugle publishes an article. He brings it back up by being a relatable Gen Z kid and using Instagram Live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wonky update schedule, at the moment I'm on vacation and have only had patchy spots of WiFi, so there's that. Sorry again for however little I update in the next week.

_Peter Stark, son of Tony Stark, was spotted last night coming out of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. A Daily Bugle reporter followed him for a block or two, hoping for an interview before spotting him with an unknown girl, who walked hand in hand for a while, before the girl noticed our reporter, whirling around and being hostile. She said many profane things, threatening our reporter with legal action, before officially, on the record, saying that the young Stark was her boyfriend, proceeding to very aggressively kiss him and drag him away. Peter has been part of quite the scandal lately, but none as juicy as this. Who is this mystery girl? Why does she have such an effect on our young new protege? And what new scandals will Peter Stark get into now? Will he really be capable of running the most powerful company on Earth? Or will his new lady love distract him? You'll find out more when we do!_

Pepper put the paper down, the big image of him and MJ kissing on the front cover clear for the eye to see. It was the day after. Thankfully, the article was published after school had started, so nobody had said anything at school. But Pepper had told Peter to invite MJ to the tower so she could get the full story. He and MJ were sitting in Pepper’s office, looking at their laps like they were sent to the principal's office.

“It’s okay, both of you, I’m not mad at all. The press can be a lot to deal with. I just wanna know exactly what happened so we can figure out what we’re doing about it.” MJ didn’t seem convinced, but Peter looked at Pep.

“So like, I’m filming Colbert, right? And we’re done and I wanna walk outside, so I text Happy that I’m walking home and-” Pepper’s eyes widened.

“Peter, why? Everyone’s looking for you why would you want that?” He shrugged his shoulders, and she nodded at him to continue.

“So I’m walking home, right, and I’m freaking out about being on Colbert, right? And suddenly MJ is there, I guess she just happened to be there, and so we’re like walking home, right, and suddenly she like spins around like a badass-”

“Peter!” MJ smacked him.

“What? It’s true, it was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen, and I live with Natasha Romanov! Like my spidey senses didn’t even notice this dude, and here you are literally ballerina spinning to confront this guy it was so cool! So like, she whirls around and starts cursing out this dude and generally scaring him, and this dude is terrified, but he doesn’t back down, and I’m like, ‘whatever MJ it’s fine we’re almost to the tower you can come up’, but she’s on one of her rants on honor, which thank you for defending my honor by the way, and eventually since this guy doesn’t stop, we caused a distraction and then got the hell out of dodge.”

Pepper nodded slowly, confused. She turned to MJ.

“Anything to add?” She shook her head, and Pepper leaned back in her chair.

“So, we need to figure out what to do. I would say Press Release, but for something as informal as announcing an 18-year old’s relationship, that seems to be a bit much. Plus, we don’t want it to seem like we’re responding to the Daily Bugle. We want to discredit their article without really make it about discrediting the article. Any ideas?” MJ shook her head after a second, but Peter’s eyes lit up.

“Literally, just have dad tweet out my social media. He’s got the 2nd most followers on all of Twitter on his personal, he could so get the message out. Once people start following me, I invite MJ to the tower, probably tomorrow, and we do an Instagram Live. Small, genuine, and that way they can ask questions, and we decide to answer them.”

Pepper nodded. “So anyone who’s interested will join, ask questions if they choose, otherwise just listening. So you end up answering questions in a way that doesn’t seem like you’re responding to the Daily Bugle. Perfect. Go upstairs and tell Tony to do it. MJ can come, which speaking of, remind Happy to get her a badge made by the time she comes tomorrow. For today, you can just override FRI, but Happy won’t be… happy.” She snorted at her own joke, and shooed the children out of her office.

They walked to the elevator, telling FRI to go to the Penthouse and allow her access.

“Dad, I’m home!” He said, throwing his backpack on the counter. He gestured for MJ to do the same, but she set hers down.

A muffled, “I’m in your lab!” came from the door to the labs.

This time, they went through the right door, opening up the door to Peter’s lab.

Tony Stark had dragged the tall ladder that resided by the chalkboard to the large inset drawers, his top half practically disappearing inside one of them. He stood up on the ladder, coming out of the drawer.

“What’d Pepper say? Are you grounded forever?” Peter stuck out his tongue at him.

“No she wasn’t mad, but we need you to tweet my Instagram and twitter so we can fix it.” Tony dug out his phone from his back pocket and tossed it to Peter from the top of the ladder, who caught it and logged in. MJ noticed that both Peter’s and Tony’s phones were the newest Starkphones, that hadn’t been released yet. MJ remembered Peter’s old Blackberry that he’d had until he met Tony and smiled. Good for him.

Peter composed the tweet from Tony’s phone, and within minutes his started blowing up.

Tony turned to her.

“So what’s your name, girl who got caught by the paps making out with my son?”

MJ decided that Tony was trustworthy enough to call her MJ.”

“MJ, sir.” Tony sputtered.

“Please don’t call me that, it makes me feel old.” Peter, who was pouting at Tony’s questioning, muttered, “You are old,” under his breath, and without turning from MJ, Tony held up a hand, silencing Peter.

“No comment from the peanut gallery, thanks.”

“So you’re the famous Michelle. Peter and Pepper both speak very highly of you, and as much as I question your methods of getting rid of paparazzi, I trust their judgment much more than I trust my own. Also, Peter’s been pining hopelessly for about a year and a half and anybody who can keep the hyper manchild’s attention for more than a minute must be something pretty special.” MJ grinned and Peter turned bright red.

“Dad!”

“Welcome to our little fucked up family, MJ. Hope you like it here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.” He almost gagged.

“Oh god no that’s worse. Call me Tony. Peter literally didn’t stop calling me Mr. Stark until a year after he was legally my responsibility. That’s so much worse.”

He went back to digging in the massive drawer.

“Peter where on Earth did you put the bent up axel that we were gonna fix? I swear it was in my lab, but you told me you moved all the car parts up here.” Peter sighed, walking up to Tony, and rather than climbing the ladder, he started walking up the wall. MJ knew he was Spiderman, but seeing him do freaky shit without the mask on kind of freaked her out. No wonder he didn’t need a ladder for the drawers in this room. She suspected he didn’t need one for the chalkboard, either, and just had it for the aesthetic.

“No, dad, I told you it was in here.” He pushed in the wall and opened up the drawer directly above him. Tony sighed and pulled the bent rod out.

“If you would have asked Karen where the car parts were, she would’ve opened it for you, old man.” Suddenly Pepper walked into the room.

“Happy’s ready to take you home, Michelle, if you’re ready.”

Peter leaped from the wall.

“Hey dad, when I get Happy to make MJ a badge, can I make it Alpha Blue?” MJ’s eyes widened. She would be the fifth person to ever get one of those. But Tony scoffed.

“Alpha Blue just gives access to our labs, I’ll give her the same thing Ted has, where she can get into the penthouse.”

Pepper cleared her throat. “Oh no, you won’t. I might need her to come into your labs and drag Peter out by his ear every once and a while, because Lord knows you won’t do it, and Peter rarely listens to me. This girl is getting access everywhere. She seems to be the only one who can keep Peter in check.” Peter blushed red.

“Michelle, sweetie, text Peter tonight what you want your badge to say, Michelle Jones, or MJ or something else.” MJ looked confused. 

“I get to pick?” Pepper smiled patiently, and flashed her badge, which didn’t say Pepper Stark, or anything normal, it said “Resident Boss Lady” MJ grinned, and Peter showed her his badge. “Peter Snark”

“You can have it say whatever you want, but FRI will still call you out as Michelle Jones.”

“Maybe she should write “Apprentice Boss Lady” seeing as it seems like you and Pep will be fast friends. Now shoo, go home before someone worries you’ve been kidnapped.”

She walked closer to him and Pepper.

“Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Pepper.” Pepper smiled, and Tony winked.

“You got a good thing going, MJ, don’t let Peter’s bad influence deter you from wherever you’re going.” Peter looked offended.

“Excuse you, but which one of us is Valedictorian? Imeanshe’sSalutatorianbutstill- And more so, which one of us is literally your son?” As MJ walked out, she could hear Peter protesting Tony, but nevertheless helping him with car parts. She exited the building with a grin still on her face.

-=+=-

_peter.benjamin.stark started a live video_

Peter was in his lab, holding MJ’s security pass, which she had eventually decided, with assurance from Peter that she could always change it later, on just “MJ”. She should be here any minute, but he wanted to make it seem genuine, so he started the livestream, and would introduce her whenever she came. School had been hell. Everyone had seemed to have seen the Daily Bugle article. It just ended, and MJ had gone back home to grab her laptop and various speech drafts.

“Hello to the people of the internet, my name’s Peter, in case you didn’t know that. If you’re watching this now, welcome to the livestream, if you’re watching this in 2020, what’s the year of perfect vision like? I figured I’d do this little thing to answer all of the strange internet questions that will never come up in legitimate interviews, so here I am, ask away!”

It took a few seconds before the questions started rolling in, but they did. A lot.

“Okay, first, _natasharomanovstan_ asks ‘ _Who’s the girl? _’”__

__“First off, I appreciate your username, I too stan Nat, because who doesn’t? Secondly, the girl is my girlfriend. She’s coming to the tower soon so we can finish working on our graduation speeches, so if you have questions about her, could you hold them off, she’ll be here in literally about a minute, and she’ll probably answer some questions, too.” Suddenly he snorted._ _

__“I’m not going to say that one. Anyway. _katie.kenmore_ says ‘ _What’s your favorite color and why?_ ’ My favorite color is red, because Iron Man. He’s been my hero since I was eight and now he’s my dad, so…” He trailed off, and a voice announced, “Michelle Jones, Alpha Blue, Penthouse access approved.” He smiled._ _

__“People, you’re about to meet her, the queen, Michelle Jones.” The door to Peter’s lab opened. Michelle threw her backpack onto the table and set down her laptop._ _

__“Hey, loser, you ready to work on some graduation speeches?” She said, acting her part pretty well._ _

__“Actually MJ, I started a live stream to answer questions. Wanna help?” She looked skeptical, but nodded, sitting in front of the camera and finally becoming visible to the audience. She rubbed her hands together._ _

__“Okay, _future.of.feminism_ , which, mood, says, “ _Peter and MJ why are you writing speeches for graduation?_ ” She nodded._ _

__“Good question. Um, he’s Valedictorian, I’m Salt-utatorian, because I am still salty.” Peter laughed._ _

__“To be fair to MJ, though, there’s a good reason she’s so salty, and that is that she was first in our class all year, me literally a thousandth of a GPA point behind her, and on our last test that counted towards graduation which was worth like half of our entire semester average, she got a 94 and I got a 100, which brought me a hundredth of a GPA point higher than her, so I say we split it pretty evenly.” He gave her a high five. “Anyway, at our school, and probably most others, Val and Sal write speeches to present to the entire class. And we’re being cheesy and writing our graduation speeches so they match and the jokes and punchlines are continued between speeches. We’re going to perform it like poetry. Like rhyming and all.” She took a sip of her water and raised her eyebrows._ _

__The comments were suddenly just filled with the word ‘aw’ in various lengths and degrees of excitement._ _

__Peter cleared his throat._ _

__“Ned joined the stream, MJ”_ _

__“Hey Ned!” MJ called, with water in her mouth. Peter read the next line and almost choked on his own spit._ _

__“ _Guyinthechair_ says, “ _Holy shit I can’t believe you guys finally got together and didn’t tell your own damn best friend. Betrayal._ ” MJ spit her water on Peter’s desk, which was thankfully empty._ _

__“Holy shit we forgot to tell Ned.” She made eye contact with Peter, then the camera._ _

__“Sorry, Ned.” Peter cleared his throat._ _

__“ _rosanna.quijano_ says ‘ _what happened with the Daily Bugle thing?_ ’_ _

__MJ slammed her fists on the table. “Okay, I’m going to mini-rant. So there was this reporter dude who was literally being a creep, following us for like four blocks, and they wondered why we were hostile? That’s weird as all shit. He wouldn’t leave us alone, so we caused a distraction, then made like a banana and split.”_ _

__Peter snorted._ _

__“MJ who even says ‘make like a banana and split’ anymore?”_ _

__She glared at him. He looked at the camera._ _

__“Also, I have the best girlfriend. She defends my honor in front of bullies and paparazzi. It’s great.” She smiled at him. And this time, he kissed her, not nearly as violently as their last, and backflipped out of the frame. Because he could, you know?_ _

__He walked back into the frame._ _

__“So, unfortunately, we both have stuff to do, but this was fun, we should do another soon. Hope you guys had fun, now you guys all know Peter Stark’s personal Instagram. Eventually I’ll give up my snap, and I’ll like, answer questions, but for now, it’s just this. Bye!”_ _

__He ended the live stream. 1.2 million people watching. Fun. He archived it, let it stay up._ _

__Hopefully, that was one problem averted._ _


	4. Peter, Pepper, and Tony Stark Answer the Web's Most Asked Questions (WIRED)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's literally just that. There isn't even like, a reaction. It's just them answering questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for my complete lack of update schedule. I'll be gone another half a week, but I've had time to write, so I've got a chapter or two lined up.

This one was better. He had his dad and Pepper, and there were only four other people in the room. It wasn’t in front of anyone, which was good. All they had to do was sit in those directors chairs, Peter in the middle of his dad and Pepper, peel papers off of a piece of cardboard, and answer them.

It had been a week since the Daily Bugle thing, and most people had shamed the Daily Bugle for their invasive reporting. The people, for once, had worked in Peter’s favor.

As soon as they finished setting up the lights and finished their makeup, they were told to go sit down and get ready. They told them to just talk, get their voices warmed up, do the mic check.

“Hey, dad. What did the buffalo say when he sent his son off to college?” Tony’s eyes narrowed.

“I swear to god Peter. I don’t know, what did he say?” Peter smirked.

“Bison.” Tony facepalmed.

“You’ll have to do that soon,” Peter started, “What will you say?” Pepper snorted.

“If you think that man will be able to say anything through his tears, you’re so wrong. He’s going to be ugly crying so hard.” Tony pursed his lips, about to speak, and Pepper put a finger to his lips.

“If you want to fight me on this, I bet you Stark Industries, the whole thing, none of this 12% bs, that you will cry when we drive Peter to Massachusetts. The entire company. I will literally go find another job and quit mine if you manage not to shed a tear.” Tony scrunched up his face., throwing his hands in the air defensively.

“I don’t want it. If Stark Industries falls back into my hands, God knows what will happen to it. Chaos will erupt. Shareholders will flip. It will be mutiny. There’s a reason I’m leaving it to you and Peter. And you’re probably right, I will cry, but I bet you all of my suits that once Peter leaves, Natasha won’t come out of her room for any reasons except missions and food for a week. And Barnes, I bet you anything that he’ll mope more than usual.” Pepper tilted her head.

“To take you up on that bet would be to lose. Everyone knows how much Nat and Bucky love Peter.” Peter smiled at the camera.

Someone gave a thumbs up to them from behind a camera, signaling that they were ready to start. Then from somewhere else in the studio, someone yelled, “Remember the intro, it’s Mrs. Stark, Mr. Stark, and then Baby Stark.” Peter blushed at the nickname, not that he wasn’t used to it. They gave another thumbs up when someone said “Action” and then gestured for them to start. Pepper smiled.

“I’m Pepper Stark,” Tony flashed his famous paparazzi smirk.

“I’m Tony Stark,” Peter grinned as wide as he could.

“And I’m Peter Stark, and welcome to our WIRED Autocomplete Interview.”

Someone in the massive studio yelled “Cut!” And suddenly someone was walking up to them with the signs. They settled back in with them, deciding that Peter would hold for Pepper, Tony would hold for Peter, and Pepper would hold for Tony. Tony was going first. When they called action again, Tony sat up in his chair.

“Okay, firstly, Is Tony Stark,” He nodded. “Good question to start with.” He reached across Peter to rip off the first strip. “Is Tony Stark Iron Man?” He looked into the camera like he was on the Office. “No.” He ripped off another. “Is Tony Stark an Avenger?” He looked offended. “To whoever ask this, I practically started the Avengers. I was the first one Fury came to, before the Capsicle was really a thing in the 21st century.” He reached over Peter again, who said, 

“Hey dad, as much as I love you, this is annoying. How about I rip, you read?” Tony nodded, and Peter ripped off the next one.

“Is Peter Stark actually Tony Stark’s child?” This time it was Peter who looked offended. “In all ways except biologically, Peter is Pep and I’s kid.” They smiled and both rubbed Peter’s shoulders. He smiled and ripped off the next one.

“Is Tony Stark a dad?” Tony looked taken aback. “Well, yeah, I mean, Peter’s my kid, but if the question is whether or not I’m like a stereotypical American dad, the answer is no.” Peter snorted. "That's a bold-faced lie and you know it." he looked at the camera. "Along with actually adopting me, he's also unofficially adopted a kid named Harley, Wanda, my best friend Ned, and my girlfriend MJ. And all of us can attest to the fact that he becomes a complete helicopter American dad when it comes to us. Especially if it’s a situation where we might be in danger. He becomes the most worried dad, it’s great." 

“Yeah okay kid, just keep exposing me, read the next one you punk.” Peter ripped off the last one. “Is Tony Stark alive?” Tony contorted his face. “Are any of us? Okay, Peter’s turn. He took the board from Pepper and threw it away from them, picking up another and holding it. Peter sat up straighter, reading the prompt.

“Can Peter Stark…” He nodded. “Perfect. Can Peter Stark. Nice.” Pepper ripped off his first one.

“Can Peter Stark inherit Stark Industries?” He looked at the camera. “Yes, but let’s hope I don’t have to because if I inherit Stark Industries, it would mean that Pepper is dead or close to being so, and this world would be 20 times worse without Pepper, so, yeah.” Pepper gave him a hug and ripped off the next one.

“How many languages can Peter Stark Speak?” He cocked his head. “Why is that a frequently Googled question? But the answer is kind of complicated. I’m fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, and I can carry a simple conversation in Russian and Romanian, and I’m learning Cantonese, but I’m pretty bad at it. I’m learning it because the majority of the really important people at Stark Industries work at SI Hong Kong, and I need to be able to communicate.”

Pepper looked surprised. “Peter I thought you only spoke English and Spanish, what’s with the plethora of languages?” He blushed.

“Well, once you learn one of the romance languages, the others, with their similar rules and such, are pretty easy to get the hang of. So after Spanish, Portuguese and Italian came somewhat easily, though I do get some words mixed up sometimes. Plus dad speaks Italian, and whenever I get something wrong, he’s good at correcting it. Natasha and Wanda are both fantastic teachers, teaching me Russian and Romanian respectively. Russian’s sort of weird because they don’t have articles, which is kinda trippy. But I can carry conversations about food and normal stuff in both of them. Cantonese is really hard because it requires sounds my mouth doesn’t like to make, and written Chinese is even worse, but it is really fun. Ooh and Thor’s a terrible teacher, but I can say like two things in Asgardian, which is cool.” He failed to notice Pepper’s hands, which were holding up the number ‘7’. Her eyes somewhat bulged out of her head.

“Peter did you just casually tell me that you can speak seven languages plus a few phrases in an alien dialect?” 

He blushed, looking at his lap. “Just peel the next one, Pep.”

“Not saying our kid’s a genius, Tony, but our kid’s a genius.” Tony smiled widely, slapping the hunched over Peter on the back. “What can you say in Asgardian, Pete?” He looked up. “I can say ‘hello’, which is surprisingly long and drawn out for being one word in all of our languages, I can say ‘can you not’, and I can say ‘please don’t kill us’ in a respectful way in case I ever encounter an angry Asgardian.” Pepper peeled the next one.

“Can Peter Stark work the Iron Man suit?” Peter made a little humming noise. “Interesting question, but yeah, I can! For security reasons, the Iron Man suits can only form around programmed people. All of the Avengers could, in theory, get in an Iron Man suit, in case they need to be moved very quickly and safely to a hospital or something, but they never have. Pepper and I are also programmed into the suits, because Tony worries a lot. Pepper’s been in a suit once, a long time ago, but I haven’t ever. So, yeah in theory, but only really in emergencies.” Pepper ripped off the next one.

“Can Peter Stark do a backflip?” He looked dead at the camera. “I guess I kind of deserved that one, for showing off on the live stream. So, yes, I can. I can also to a front flip.” Tony practically pushed him up out of his seat. “Go on kid, you can’t just say that and not show off.” 

Peter stood up after some protest, clasped his hands, and did a perfect back tuck, straightening out his dress shirt and walking back to his seat, hoping the camera captured it. Tony overdramatically clapped.

“Okay, Peter,” Pepper started, “The last one. Can Peter Stark become an Avenger?” Peter’s eyes lit up. “Hey dad, I know I’m not a superhero,” he lied, “but can I be an Avenger anyway? Please?” Tony chuckled, the irony getting to him. He already was one. “Sure kid, you can be Mission Control. I mean you practically are already Mission Control anyway.” He threw the board away, and Peter grabbed Pepper’s board. Pepper read off the prompt.

“Pepper Stark…” She nodded. “Straight to the point, no prompt got it.” Peter peeled her first strip.

“Pepper Stark wedding. Um, yeah, it was big and grand, I cried, Peter cried, Tony cried, I’m a married woman now, Tony is no longer a playboy. Moving on.” Peter cleared his throat.

“It was fantastic. Pepper’s dress was Vera Wang, it was like three thousand dollars or something crazy, The theme was this really pretty coral peach color and gold, they flew everyone to this uninhabited island off of Hawai’i which they had bought, the reception was on the beach, and it was all of the bridesmaids looked great, Pepper looked absolutely fantastic, Tony got out of his grease stained sweatpants, it was like a fairytale, and it wasn’t even my wedding. It was my parents’ wedding, but before they were my parents. Pepper’s right, I bawled like a baby.” He peeled off the next one.

“Pepper Stark net worth. I actually have no idea, nor do I really care.” Peter peeled the next one.

“Pepper and Tony Stark Women's March. I assume this means that one picture of Tony and I where we were social justice warriors with our outrageous amounts of pink, leading the Women’s March.” Peter’s face turned pouty.

“Okay, storytime, so I’m still salty, because they just told me they were going to DC, not why, so I assumed they were going to boring work things, but lo and behold, while they’re there, I turn on the tv, and on every station was a picture of them at the women’s march that I was stuck supporting at home, while they lead the entire thing, Pepper completely decked out in pink, Tony with an Iron Man suit painted pink, I refused to speak to either of them for a week, until they promised they’d take MJ, Ned and I to this year’s, because we support the women in this country.” Someone whistled from behind the camera, and Pepper, Tony, and Peter all laughed. Peter ripped off the next one.

“Pepper Stark Natasha Romanov being kickass meme.” She cocked her head. “What?” Peter’s eyes lit up. “Wait you don’t know?” Pepper shook her head slowly. “Should I?” Peter nodded furiously. “So there’s this picture that went kind of viral, and I have no idea who took the picture, but it’s great. It got turned into one of those tag yourself memes. It was during that invasion of the tower directly after Steve and the others got back. And you are like crossing your arms sternly and looking at one of the baddies with your I’m-Pepper-Potts-I-deal-with-Tony-Stark-on-a-daily-basis-you’re-nothing-special look, and he looks terrified, even though he’s got a gun and you don’t have anything, and in the background you can sorta see Tasha and she’s doing a flip off of a guy she just knocked out and it’s super cool. And Spiderman’s in the background web-slinging and being irrelevant, and dad has his mask off of his Iron Man suit and he’s looking at the bad guy like, ‘dude, run’. Anyway, it went viral because it was like, here are two badass women scaring people and being amazing in two completely different, but still amazing ways, plus Tony Stark being shooketh. Like, there’s Tasha, who is literally backflipping off of a person, and then there’s you, scaring the crap out of someone invading your home, both deserving of respect in their own right. I have it hanging up somewhere in my room somewhere, I’ll show you when we get home.” Pepper nodded.

“I’m glad that’s something people think of when they think of me, but I’m sure it was just taken out of context.” Tony shook his head. “That wasn’t a fault of the camera, you looked terrifying, and that guy actually looked like he about to piss himself.” Peter ripped off the last one off.

“Pepper Stark literally cannot look bad tumblr.” Pepper made a face that was the physical version of ‘???’, and Peter got excited again.

“So, someone on tumblr posted this thing with a whole bunch of pictures that paparazzi had taken of you with someone, after a battle or a long plane ride, and whoever’s in the picture with you looks somewhat dead, but you still look like a queen, and a whole bunch of tumblr people started calling you a vampire that doesn’t need sleep or anything else, that always looks good.” Pepper flipped her hair.

“As cool as being a vampire would be, unfortunately, I am not one.” She grabbed the board from Peter and spun it over her shoulder.

“So,” she started, “That was the end of our WIRED Autocomplete Interview. Maybe you guys learned something, I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, the next chapter's kind of angsty.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> But there's a happy ending, so


	5. Every News Station In the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's angst.
> 
>  
> 
> But only a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to go up yesterday but a few minutes ago I checked the archive and it wasN'T THERE AND I LITERALLY THINK I WROTE OUT EVERYTHING AND JUST FORGOT TO HIT POST AND I'M SO SORRY ABOUT THAT

_Stark Tower has caught fire! Due to unknown causes, the tallest building in New York is on fire from its fifth floor to it’s ninth…_

Peter couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The upper floors had been evacuated, the fire pushed from the stairwells. Pepper was okay. Dr. Johnson was okay. So was Dr. Roberta. So was Bruce, and the rest of the Avengers. So was all the SI staff.

Dad.

His dad was on floor eight for a press meeting.

His suit was upstairs.

Upstairs was on lockdown.

He couldn’t even call for the suits.

His dad was trapped with a roomful of 50 reporters in a building on fire.

_New reports from the Avengers say that there was a bomb on floor seven that spread flame to the two floors above it, as well as to the two below. At the moment, the structural integrity of the building is not compromised…_

Peter called to FRIDAY.

“FRI open the door!” The AI was too calm for the situation.

“The building is on lockdown, Peter, I cannot. To enter Floor 8 would be to kill you. The stairwells are safe. Please continue down them.” 

Peter was crying in front of all the others rushing downstairs, but he didn’t care. “FRIDAY, OVERRIDE IT. I NEED TO GET IN THERE!” He barely registered her denial before he ripped the door off of its hinges. 

_Though all of the employees have been evacuated, there are fifty-six people left unaccounted for, fifty-four reporters on the eighth floor, as well as Tony Stark and his son, Peter. If you have any information…_

The smoke was too much. He spotted four people in business uniforms slouched near the door, unconscious, he dragged them to the stairs and got them downstairs where it was safe. As soon as he busted out of the doors, reporters swarmed him. He didn’t register their questions as he spoke. 

“I’m going back in.” He yanked out of the arms pulling him back and ran back inside.

_Peter Stark, the billionaire's son, has been spotted several times coming out of the buildings with unconscious persons, seemingly reporters, escaping our efforts to stop him going back in. The fire has been contained to floors 5 through 9, though it has proven difficult to extinguish. The Avengers have been spotted, trying to enter safely from the top of the building, but it looks as if they have had no success…_

He had the last four reporters in fireman’s carry, but he couldn’t see his dad.

The smoke was starting to get him, even with his superpowers.

Dad.

He couldn’t see, and the air was so dry that he couldn’t cry.

Dad.

He ran downstairs to deposit the reporters, and waiting for him was Natasha. He dropped them and tried to run back inside before she could get to him, but she caught up quickly. He expected her to hold him back, but she just slipped an oxygen mask over his face and handed him a pair of gloves before slipping one over her own face and following him inside.

_The Black Widow has returned from the burning Tower, which has amazingly not been structurally compromised, and she appears to be frantic. Peter Stark did not return with her, and she’s saying that the stairway was blocked by a piece of falling debris, trapping her out and him in. Peter had entered the building previously an astounding 14 times to save others, but now his only option would be to jump out of a window, and we’ve got trampolines set up for if he does. At this point, the only two people left unaccounted for are Tony and Peter Stark. The fire has been extinguished on the ninth and fifth floors, still continuing to burn on floors six through eight. The building amazingly still hasn’t obtained any structural damage, and at this time, we doubt it will..._

Peter was locked in, and he knew he was dead. He was eight stories up. He had a pair of gloves. He couldn’t jump out of the window or anything. He didn’t have his web shooters. He didn’t have an Iron Man suit. He barely even had a damn oxygen mask. 

He was going to die.

He’d already tried moving the fallen beam. He couldn’t, even with his super strength.

He was going to give the oxygen mask to his dad and die.

He found his dad, but chances were, he was going to die too.

He should have saved him first, why didn’t he save him first? He should have saved his dad first, and now they were both going to die.

But he had his dad.

His unconscious, breathing in smoke dad. 

Tony coughed, inhaling more smoke.

But Peter did have one more thing.

He could climb down the building.

At the moment, his secret was much less important than his survival. He grabbed his dad and hauled him over to the window.

He broke it, and with his super hearing, he could he could hear the gasps from below.

He was used to the view of New York from the top of this building, but looking straight down from the eighth floor was far scarier. If he slipped up, if he couldn’t carry Tony, then they were both dead.

He used his dad’s silk tie to tie around his wrist, in case Peter dropped him. He eased Tony’s body out of the window, lowering himself down with him. God, how was he going to do this?

_Peter Stark was spotted coming out of a south side eighth-floor window, carrying Tony Stark, who appeared to be unconscious, out of the building. He appeared to be scaling the building with a pair of special gloves, probably Stark Tech. Once the trampoline was repositioned and he was on the second floor, he dropped Stark, climbing down to meet him. Tony Stark is in critical condition, and Peter Stark, a new American hero, has also been hospitalized, though not as seriously. Pepper Stark was seen heading into the ambulance with them, crying…_

Peter didn’t fall asleep. He didn’t need anything, just an oxygen tube. He had a bed anyway.

Tony was different. He didn’t wake up. His leg looked broken, he had inhaled a lot of smoke, he had burns, everywhere. He could have been dead.

But he wasn’t. Peter assured himself over and over again.

He wasn’t.

He wouldn’t.

Pepper wasn’t allowed in their room. Neither was Bruce, though he was most equipped to deal with their injuries. He could hear him outside, talking to the doctor in hushed voices.

‘Tony Stark is my patient, Doctor, I’m most equipped to deal with his injuries.’

‘Peter isn’t like most kids, he requires extremely high doses of pretty much everything, and he can’t thermoregulate very well. You need to either let me in or _listen to me_! That kid needs cooling packs, he’s probably burning up.’

_Though still sleeping, it has been released that Tony Stark has been stabilized, and will be okay. Peter, the hero of this nightmare, is also okay._

It took him days to wake up. The doctors thought he had gone into a coma. He’d flatlined.

Peter was pretty numb to it all. To the outside world, it would seem that he didn’t care. 

It was his fault, and he’d accepted that. He still didn’t know what he’d do if Tony actually died.

Tony didn’t wake up slowly like people do in the movies. He jolted awake, scaring Bruce and Pepper, who had finally been allowed in their room. Peter didn’t even flinch. He was probably seizing. He didn’t want to see it. God, he just wanted it to end. He didn’t want to see it anymore, he didn’t want to hear it anymore.

“Peter!” Peter looked at him, surprised, and Pepper rushed to his side. He started trying to pull out his IV and taking the oxygen tube out of his nose. Pepper couldn’t get him to calm down.

“Pepper, where’s Peter? Peter! He was in the building saving people, I saw him! I couldn’t get to him and then the beam… Pepper where is he? Where’s my son?” He looked frantic, and Pepper moved out of the way and pointed to him.

Tony automatically calmed down, though he started getting worked up again when he saw Peter crying.

All of the emotions that Peter had bottled up spilled out when he heard Tony’s voice when he realized he was actually awake.

Peter yanked the oxygen tube that he didn’t need out of his nose and pushed past Pepper, tackling Tony in a hug that was automatically returned by a strong pair that hugged him back just as ferociously. He laid on his bed and hugged him tighter. The room was beeping with all of the messed up machines, but none of them cared. Pepper joined in their hug, and suddenly Tony was okay. His leg hurt like hell, and his chest felt like it was melting from the inside out, but he had his kid and his wife, and he was fine.

He and Peter fell asleep like that, on the same bed, and when Peter woke up, someone had replaced his oxygen tube without moving him, letting him sleep with his dad.

The first thing MJ did when she came in was slapped him across the face for putting himself in danger, then immediately kiss him breathless for being so selfless. Tony and Pepper got a good laugh out of that.

Ned gave him the warmest hug he had ever received.

Tasha had cried and told him that she was so, so, sorry. He didn’t want her apology. She had let him save his dad.

Steve had apologized, close to tears, that he couldn’t get to them faster.

The whole thing was oddly emotional. They were fine. He was pretty desensitized to the whole thing.

They were out of the hospital a week later, the other Avengers having caught the guy who did it, Pepper already working on rebuilding the burnt portions of the tower. Floors five and nine were just a coat of paint away from being done when they returned. 

There were a plethora of reporters staked outside of the tower when Happy was finally allowed to drive them home.

“Mr. Stark your son saved fifty-five people last week, including yourself, what are your thoughts?”

“Peter, what’s it like to be an American Hero?”

“Mr. Stark, do you have any clue as to why someone would bomb Stark Tower?”

“Mrs. Stark, can you comment on the bomber? Do you have any details? Have the Avengers found out who did it?”

“Peter, the whole world wants to meet the Peter Stark who saved fifty-five people from a burning building, can we have an interview?”

They walked into the building, leaving the reporters behind, but Tony leaned down and whispered to Peter. “As stupid as it is, I am proud of you, you know. Without you, many people would’ve died. I’m so, so proud of you, Peter.” Peter nodded but didn’t change his expression. He was almost too late. He almost couldn’t save the one person who actually mattered. He hated himself for thinking that because he knew those reporters were just as important to someone else as Tony was to him, but he didn't stop. 

Tony gave him a squeeze.

The next day, every News station in America would want to interview Peter, but for tonight, it was just them. And everything’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I've realized that when I respond to comments, I say "my dude" a lot, if you're offended by that, please don't, I swear I'm using it as a gender-neutral term of endearment, it's sort of habit.
> 
> Also if you're sad and need something to laugh at, this morning I opened a door so violently I smacked myself in the face and now there's a bruise on my nose :^))))))))


	6. The Avengers are Proud of Peter (Instagram Live II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers get together to prove their tiny child and their manchild are safe and home. (And they answer questions)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my sudden absence, I had to travel to Colorado with my crazy family, coupled with the fact that school's starting soon, and the fact that I haven't been satisfied with what I'm writing sort of lead to me being confused and not posting anything. Here's this, though, if you want it.

Peter had his phone hooked up to the TV in the Common Room. His camera could capture the whole room, the TV would display his Instagram in real time the same way it does on his phone.

Everyone was in the room. Banner, Tasha, Clint, Steve, Bucky, Vision, and Wanda. So was Pepper. So was his dad. He took a deep breath.

“Okay, so don’t feel obliged to answer every question directed towards you, there will probably be some weird ones, this is the internet. Instagram Live is pretty chill, you don’t need to be super formal or interview-y. Um, there might be some actual News accounts, like the Daily Bugle, who will flip out and ask questions, seeing as it’s going to be the first time Tony and I have been seen since the thing, but unless it’s super pressing, don’t answer the real accounts. This is a chance for regular people to ask things. Um, yeah.” He looked at the odd crowd.

Clint, Natasha, Steve, and Bucky were all squeezed on the biggest couch, sharing a few blankets. Vision and Wanda were both sitting on the love seat, Bruce was in the armchair, and Pepper was sitting next to Tony on the opposite couch, a space for Peter once he started the thing. He nodded, everyone else repeating the gesture.  
He pressed the button, doing the whole ‘alerting your followers’ thing.

_peter.benjamin.stark started a live video_

He stood right in the middle of the Common Room, partially obscuring the Avengers. He let the audience see Tony. Once a few people had joined, and the _holy shit is that tony stark_ comments started coming in, he smiled.

“Hey, my dudes. It’s Peter. I’m alive, and out of the hospital, if you care, and I’m here with dad, to answer questions if you want. We kinda just wanted to show you that we were alive, even if we’re somewhat out of commission.” He went to his seat, revealing the rest of the team.

“Oh yeah, since we’re ‘sick’, the rest of the team is here taking care of us. They’ll be joining us if that’s cool.” The comments section went _mental_. 

Natasha grinned. “ _spiderdude_ says _oh my god it’s practically all the people I stan I’m actually dreaming_.” she paused, turning to Clint and pinching him. “Nope! This is real!” Clint rubbed his arm. “Holy hell, Tasha, that hurt!” She smirked. “Sorry birdbrain, did the poor helpless damsel in distress actually hurt someone?” Everyone in the room, and in the comments, simultaneously voiced disagreement. Tony blatantly laughed.

“Natasha Romanov? A damsel in distress? Yeah right.” Peter suddenly cracked up, and nobody could figure out why. He pointed at Natasha incredulously.

“You’re like Meg! From Hercules! Like, whenever Natasha’s in trouble, and anyone besides Clint tries to help her, it’s just like ‘ _I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this._ ’” Natasha pumped her fist. Peter suddenly remembered the live stream.

“Oh yeah! Um, _tonystarkismydad_ , which, false, Tony Stark is _my_ dad, says ‘ _what Disney characters would you be?_ ’ Can I answer this?” Everyone nodded.

“Okay, so Peter Stark’s Avengers Disney fancast is... um, okay I’ll start with Bruce. Bruce would be the Beast, because I think Banner’s personal dream is to have a castle far from civilization where he can Hulk out in peace, along with the added bonus of a massive personal library.” Bruce nodded, pretty content.

“I know I was comparing Natasha to Megara, but Megara sold her soul for a boy which is the most un-Natasha thing ever, so I’m going to say Mulan, because what a badass, and if we’re also doing like, Star Wars, then you’re Leia.” He took a breath. Natasha made a hum of agreement. Bucky looked up from where he was sitting.

“I get your point about Meg, but your statement was false. Natasha would sell her soul for one boy.’ Natasha cocked her eyebrow.  
“Yeah, and who’s that?” He smirked. “Peter.” she was prepared to deflect the question, not expecting that answer. She ended up opening her mouth and leaving it hanging open. Steve closed it. She shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Peter’s my best friend.” She ignored Clint’s offended face. Peter beamed. “Awwwwww, Aunt Tasha, you’re my best friend, too!” He moved on.

“Um, Pepper is definitely Ariel. You know, Ariel just one day said I want this boy, so I’m literally going to risk everything and persist until I get this boy. Pepper’s deal wasn’t a boy, but she was like, ‘I’m going to run me a company that has practically been handed to me and I’m going to show these misogynist fucks who's the one in charge of the biggest company in the world. It’s a stretch I know, but there’s also the red hair, and none of you have heard Pepper sing ‘Part of Your World’, but I have, and it’s beautiful. I have my reasons.” He ignored Pepper’s glare and Steve’s call of “Language!”

“While staying on the Little Mermaid, Bucky is 10/10 Sebastian, annoyed guy who attempts to stop people doing stupid stuff, normally fails, and gets dragged along for the ride anyway, but if we’re doing Star Wars you’re Kylo Ren, not because you’re actually like him, but just for the aesthetic.” Bucky looked confused, and Peter realized he probably had no idea what he was talking about. “But anyways, yeah, Sebastian, because you’re _crabby._ ”

“Peter, Sebastian is a-” Peter huffed.

“Yeah dad, I know, Sebastian is a lobster, butitwasforajokeohmygod” Tony was inches away from bursting out laughing.

“Tony Stark is Kuzco from the Emporer’s New Groove.” Tony’s smile faltered.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re Kuzco. Think about it. You were both complete assholes not caring about your actions and how they affected others, you had an experience that changed your mind with help from a dude who was being affected by the things.” Tony shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll cede that, but if I’m Kuzco, whose Yzma and Kronk?”

“Thor’s not as stupid as Kronk, but he’s Kronk, for lack of another person. Thanos is Ymza.” Natasha looked confused, which rarely happened. “Why’s Thanos Yzma?” Peter grinned.

“Ugly, wrinkly, evil, and purple.” The room was still for a second, then filled with laughter. So were the comments.

“Okay, so if dad was Star Wars, he would be Han Solo. A cocky dude who thinks he can do everything with the super tall, constantly annoyed sidekick, the sidekick would be Rhodey, who ends up falling for the absolutely terrifying badass chick, neither of whom really wanted it. So I guess that makes Pepper sorta Leia too.” Both of them nodded.

“I would say that Steve is Hercules. I mean, pre-serum, he was still super selfless, trying to help and sorta screwing things up, then becoming all buff, still being selfless, and saving the world. Beating the HYDRA.” Steve looked pleased, though he hadn’t actually seen Hercules, he knew his story. And the double meaning behind the ‘hydra’ thing didn’t go over his head.

“Wanda is Elsa, she had to learn how to control her powers and use them for good, and she didn’t do it for a boy, she did it for herself.”

“I don’t have a normal Disney claim for Vis, but he’s like a mix between the ‘watch me’ R2D2 and the ‘wait no don’t do that its a bad idea’ C3PO, so there’s that.”

“Clint is Merida, because archer, but also if Fury is Merida’s mom, and Fury was all like ‘no don’t do that, she’s a Russian spy, stay here,’ and Clint was like ‘lol suck it’. Clint reached across the couch and fist bumped Peter. Natasha squinted at the screen.

“ _peter.benjamin.stank_ , nice name, says, ‘ _what about you?_ ’” Peter looked puzzled.

“I actually don’t know. The only reason I could come up with theirs is because I think about it a lot.” Tony smiled.

“I got it.” Peter cocked his head, resulting in a chorus of awwwww’s from the comments. “What?”

“You’re the kid from Meet The Robinsons. Genius inventor kid with messy hair, had a sweet mother figure until he was a teenager, got adopted by a gaggle of crazy people.” Peter fake pouted. “I didn’t get to go to the future, though. That’s disappointing.”

Bucky looked up at his name on the screen.

“ _disappointing.username_ says ‘ _Bucky and Natasha, do you two speak Russian to each other when you want to gossip about other team members?_ ’, okay, so we did. Until _someone_ ,” he glared at Natasha, “taught the parasitic baby Stark how to speak Russian, and since we mostly gossip about Tony and Steve, we had to stop.” Natasha raised her hand. “In mine and Peter’s defense, Unless we’re gossipping about Tony, he mostly just gossips with us. And, Wanda taught him Romanian, so they gossip without anyone for the most part. And Tony speaks Italian and I’m 99% sure I’ve heard them speaking it when no one else is around. So don’t pin this on me, Peter just likes gossipping.” Peter blushed.

“Not true! I just like languages! Wanda and I only really talk about food or her outfit, considering those are really the only words I know how to say in Romanian, along with like understanding her if she shouts during a fight. I gossip with you because you gossip, and it’s not like we say anything _bad_. And Tony sings in Italian sometimes, but we’ve never actually like had a real conversation.” Bucky raised his arms defensively. “Anyway, yes.” Pepper squinted at the screen.

“ _sofia_pansino_1996_ says, ‘ _as badass females who are married or otherwise related to badass males, how do you deal with people who assume you’re the inferior ones_.’” Pepper tilted her head, thinking. “I can’t really speak for Nat, but I take immense satisfaction in knowing that I’m the one with the Fortune 500 Company, they’re the ones reporting on minimum wage. I also feel good knowing that productivity at SI went up 12% after I took over for Tony, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it really is. Just remember that they’re below you, that you’re a queen, and they should move on with their lives.” Natasha nodded, smirking.

“Yeah, I take satisfaction in knowing that they know that even though I’m ‘inferior’ to the boys, I can still cut them up into tiny pieces, so if I were to threaten them, they would probably wet their pants. I rarely do. Threaten them, that is, but knowing that if they were to actually see me, they would run for the hills helps.” Clint read the next question.

“ _theheroes_oftheworld_ say ‘ _Clint, why are you and Ant-Man never around as much as everyone else?_ ’ Well, I have my own children besides Peter, so I don’t live here, and Ant-Man does his superheroing in San Francisco for the most part, he’s rarely in New York, hence why he isn’t here. I know you didn’t ask, but Thor and Loki are helping Asgard as King and Prince/Royal Advisor so they’ve got their own stuff. Doctor Strange is in New York, but only shows up at the _strangest_ times, and Spiderman hasn’t revealed his identity to anyone yet, hence why he isn’t here.” It took a lot to not look at Peter when they said that, and suddenly Peter’s eyes went wide.

“Clint, you absolute subtle meme lord, that was the most well-hidden pun I’ve ever heard!” Clint cocked his head. “I agree with your statement, I mean, I’m great, but why?” Peter looked incredulous.

“He shows up at the _strangest_ times?” The common room burst out laughing, despite it not being that funny until Pepper looked back at the screen and smirked.

“ _tonystark.isdefinitely.adad_ said ‘ _Peter and Tony, do something domestic, and to the others, what is the most domestic/cute thing you’ve ever seen them do?_ ’ Good shot, um the most domestic thing I’ve ever seen them do is once, Peter fell asleep while working in the lab, and Tony picked all 95 pounds of him up bridal style and carried him up a flight of stairs to our room, not his, plopped him on our bed, and immediately koala-ed around him and fell asleep.” Tony and Peter both grinned. To prove her point, they shifted around so Tony was laying down the couch with his feet on Pepper, and Peter was tucked into his arms like a small child. It couldn’t have been comfortable for Tony, having 95 pounds of child laying on top of you, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. Clint smirked. 

“Speaking of domestic and cute, even though it isn’t with Tony, whenever Natasha walks into the room, he flings himself onto her back, and seeing the flash in her eyes when she debates judo flipping him off is hilarious, but then he just kinda stays. We’ve had entire conversations where Peter was just there. Once he fell asleep on her back and Natasha turned into such a worried mom trying to put him on the couch without waking him and getting him to let go of her.” Peter blushed scarlet from his place on Tony’s chest and Natasha smiled warmly.

“Once, I saw them in the music room, once, Pepper, Tony, and Peter,” Wanda started, “and at first Pepper was just listening to Peter and Tony, who were playing a duet on the piano, but eventually they sorta swapped, and Peter played a waltz while Tony danced with Pep, and then Tony was playing while Pepper led Peter, they were just being a normal little family, it was adorable.” The three on the couch smiled at the memory. Vision looked up.

“ _peterfreakingparkerstark_ says, ‘ _what are you all proudest of Peter for?_ ’” He paused, thinking. “Peter has made some incredible achievements in his studies, being accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and shall he choose not to continue with Stark Industries, he can get any profession he so chooses.” Banner smiled weakly.

“I know I sorta helped, but I’m so proud of you for Melanie, kid. She’s all yours, and you should be proud, too. She’s gonna help a lot of people.” Peter murmured a quiet thank you to the doctor, burying his head in Tony’s chest. Clint noticed his discomfort at the attention and decided to lighten the mood a bit.

“I’m proud of you for a lot of things, kid, but I’m proud of you for gathering up the courage to ask out the girl you’ve been head over heels for since forever. Michelle, Peter’s boo, if you’re watching this, your boyfriend is a goddamned catch, don’t let him go, same goes for you, Peter, that girl is incredible, if you let her go, I will murk you.” Peter choked on his own spit at the ‘murk’ comment from Clint, as well as at the reaction from the audience. 

_I can’t believe he has a girlfriend I was hoping he was single_

_I know Peter’s a catch, and I know I’m a catch, and yes, I’m actually watching this thing. Please don’t murk Peter. I will murk you._

“Uncle Clint, I’m appalled. Did you just say you would kill me? First, why would I give up MJ, she’s an entire snack, also even if I did, that’s a bit harsh, and everyone in this room would murk you.” Everyone nodded, and Clint paled. Natasha smirked.

“I’m proud of Peter for his improved combat since he started training with us, as well as for his complete kindness with everyone.” Wanda and Pepper agreed. Steve gave a small smile.

“I’m proud of the squirt for standing up to bullies, whether it be in his own life or someone else’s.” Bucky nodded.

“I’m proud of the parasite because he’s learned not to be a reckless little shit,” Steve smacked his real arm, and he glared, “like someone, and exercising a bit more caution in what he does.” Peter mock saluted at him, and suddenly Tony scooped up Peter and sat him back on the couch normally, facing away from the camera. He looked at him in a way most of the viewers had never seen him look before.

“I’m proud of Peter Parker for his selflessness. The way he puts everyone before himself, the way he would die before he throws someone under the bus. All of it. You’ve saved all of us here, in different ways, and I can’t express that. You’ll never know how proud of you we are, for everything you do, from helping us out with missions to Melanie, to what you do at school, you’ll never understand how much all of us love you, kid. I can’t speak for the rest of them, especially since Barton has kids of his own, but meeting you and bringing you here is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and putting you in charge of it all will soon be the best decision I’ll ever make.” He had a tear in his eye. So did Pepper and Nat. The latter spoke up. “We love you, Pete.” Peter sniffed, and in the final frame of the video, you could see a teary-eyed Peter Stark reaching up to turn off the camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not abandoning this, I just have some ideas that I want to go like, in between this, so next time I update there's a 99% chance it will be on something new, also I've been writing in the same universe for a while and I kinda wanna Shake It Up™ so I might do like one-shots. If you have any requests, um send them in. I kinda screwed up my tumblr and had to start over, but I did start over. Send me an ask, comment below I don't care. Working off of other people, bouncing around ideas is fun. my tumblr is peaceforthepeopleoftheworld don't ask why, a friend said I should do something inspirational. Um, yeah. Expect something new. That isn't this. Sorry again for the wait.


End file.
